Fare for the family table
Those of you who have been with us for a while know that we make a pretty big deal about birthday cakes here. I try hard to make good on birthday cake wishes, regardless of how challenging or esoteric they may be. So….when my birthday rolled around recently, my wife promised to do the same, and bake me the cake of my choice…what she ended up doing was to bake me the cake of my dreams.
Yeah, this one’s a keeper!
This is the first Ming Tsai recipe I ever cooked, and it remains my favorite.
Why? Three reasons.
First, it is absolutely delicious and requires no hard-to-come-by ingredients. Second, with the exception of the brining which takes a little advance planning, the meal is very quick to put together. Third, with just a little extra effort it can be quite gorgeous on the plate. For a weeknight family meal, a dollop of the pureed potatoes, a couple of slices of pork, and a spoonful of apples and you are good to go (don’t feel like making the apples, put a little Chinese Five Spice Powder into your favorite applesauce, and you’ll have an easy substitute). For a dinner party or special occasion, plate it as I have in the photo above, and its a real stunner.
There are days when I feel that I am just seconds away from renaming this blog “Oui, Chef – The Chronicle of Teaching My Kids How to Fuel Their Chocolate Addictions”, what with all the attention we’ve given brownies, bouchons, cakes, meringues, ice creams, cupcakes, sauces, and cookies that feature the freakin’ stuff.
In our never ending quest to discover the ultimate brownie (see Ad Hoc, and Killer KA), and with the help of a tip from one of our readers, Lauren, we’re here today to talk about these most fabulous “Baked” Brownies. Here, “Baked” is not a reference as to how the brownies are cooked, but rather the name of the world renowned bakery in Brooklyn that gave birth to these lovelies. After Lauren had tried the Ad Hoc brownies that we posted, and given them high marks, she asked if I had ever tried the “Baked” brownies, and was kind enough to forward a link to a story about them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
I hope your holidays were filled with delicious food, and lots of love and laughter. After weeks of elaborate, and some might say rather decadent holiday feasts, we’re back today with a perfect, easy weeknight meal that is not just healthy, but is loaded with great flavors.
If you use a quick cooking rice, this entire dish can be on the table in under 1/2 hour, if you cook brown rice as we do, it’ll take you about 40 minutes. BTW – If you are someone who has always struggled with brown rice, finding it a rather unappealing gelatinous mass in the bottom of your pan when finished cooking, try this method the next time you make it. It is foolproof and yields delicious results.
Cook the rice as though you would pasta. Pour however much rice you want into a large pot of boiling water, give it a quick stir and let it gently boil for 30 minutes. At the 30 minute mark, pour the rice into a strainer and count to ten. When you’re done counting, pour the rice back into the now empty pan, cover with a tight fitting lid and set it aside for 10 minutes (untouched) to finish cooking in its residual steam-heat. After 10 minutes, fluff it with a fork, season with salt and pepper and add any ingredients you wish to toss in, in the picture above you’ll see we’ve added some sauteed pistachios and fresh thyme.
Arthas, our resident saucier joined me in the kitchen a few nights back to work his magic with the orange-soy sauce, and could be found over the ensuing days pouring the left-over sauce on just about anything that wasn’t moving….it’s that good. The sauce is made quickly as the chicken cooks on the stove-top, simply steam some veggies at the last minute, and you’ve got a well balance meal that the whole family will love.
Cheers – Steve
I don’t have a lot of time today, but did want to wish everyone out there a joyous holiday season! As another year wraps to a close, we at Oui, Chef are grateful for the friends we’ve made here, and look forward to cooking more great food with you in the new year.
This buche de noel is one that Boris and I whipped up over the past few days, and will be enjoyed after our Christmas Eve dinner tonight. It is a combination of a few different recipes we found, inspiring a whole new holiday treat. It has a chocolate genoise cake layer, a filling of white chocolate mousse, and a coffee buttercream frosting….a few meringue mushrooms for decoration and you have a festive dessert worthy of any holiday table. This is not a difficult cake to make, but it does take some time. It would be a great holiday school vacation week project to tackle with your kids…serve it at your New Year’s party and thrill the crowd!
Wishing you all holidays full of love, laughter and lots of DELICIOUS food! Thank you so much for being such an important part of our little blog, we’ll see you next year!
Cheers – Steve and the Mrs., Grid, Boris, Arthas, Peyton and Muppet
This dish comes to us courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis of FoodTV fame. You may have noticed that I rarely, if ever, cook food that I picked up from a TV show. That’s mostly due to the fact that the abundance of food tv these days is food as blood sport, not food you’d ever necessarily want to cook and serve your family and friends. That’s not to say I don’t watch the competitive stuff, in fact I loved watching my friend Jody Adams compete on Top Chef Masters last season, and regularly tune into other Top Chef series’ when they air. I also have to admit to being a sucker for any Gordon Ramsey show, you know, like “Hell’s Kitchen” or “The F Word”. I think part of the appeal of Ramsey’s shows for me is a little game I play in my head as I watch, trying to gauge whether I think I could survive his tirades without throwing a dish at his head.
No…… your eyes are not deceiving you, the title of this post is “Chocolate Tofu Pudding”.
Yes…..you are visiting “Oui, Chef”, the VERY last place where you would expect to see tofu at all, let alone in a dessert!
For those of you who’s jaws have dropped to the floor, we’ll pause here a moment for you to pull yourself together.
Feeling better now? OK, let’s proceed.
Long before I ever had the pleasure of meeting Patricia Wells (I had the very good fortune to cook with her for a week while I lived in Paris), I was a HUGE fan. There is just something about her approach to food that really resonates with me. Perhaps it’s her focus on delicious “approachable” regional French cooking, stripped of its Michelin starred pretense, that really feels right and authentic. That’s not to say that she can’t saddle up with the best of them and cook haute cuisine meals, because she can. Her work with the famed Chef Joel Robuchon should put any question of that to rest. It’s just that she seems most comfortable sharing everyday (yet extraordinary) French cooking with those of us looking to inject a little joie de vivre into our kitchens.
I’m not much of a Facebook guy. Any of you who have been to my Oui, Chef Facebook Fan Page, can undoubtably attest to that fact…..sorry. I set up the page on a friend’s recommendation because “everyone” has one, so I should have one too. Problem is….I can’t figure out what the #$%& to do with it, so all it really contains are re-postings from my blog….ugh. To the 310 of you who have become my fans (Thanks!), please accept my apolgies for there not being anything more compelling on the fan page than what you find here. If any of you have any recommendations as to what I should do on my fan page, please let me know….I’m all ears. Perhaps one day I’ll figure it out on my own, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
I’m really no better with my personal Facebook page, in fact, I’m starting to think that I just don’t get the whole Facebook thing. All my “friends” find on my page are linked posts from this blog….I”M SO BORING. I mean, I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with old acquaintences from high school and college, but after a brief “hey nice to see you’re still alive”, and a “so what are you doing to keep yourself busy these days?”, I quickly run out of things to say. It’s not that I don’t care. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
While traveling to Paris this past Summer, our young Muppet fell in love. Awww…I can hear you all sighing at the news…..how sweet.
Yeah, the poor little thing fell fast and hard, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that her Mom and I were a bit concerned, it all happened so quickly. One day she’s a sweet and innocent 5th grader on her first trip to Europe, the next she’s on her knees begging that we take her back to the little restaurant on the Ile St-Louis where she lost her heart to a……..savory crêpe. Zut alors!
That’s right, it wasn’t a handsome young frenchman that stole young Muppet’s heart (though Pierre Hermè came close), it was a delicate egg and bacon (oeuf-lardon) galette that brought her to her knees. She was, in fact, so smitten with the thing that we returned to the scene of her infatuation (the charming “Au Lys D’Argent” at 90 Rue St-Louis-en-I’lle) two more times during our time in Paris…..such are the demands of a girl in love in the “City of Light”.
